Final Fantasy IV: The After Years Walkthrough, Part Four: Rydia's Challenge Dungeon

Rydia’s Challenge Dungeon can be accessed via Agart’s Challengingway. He’s sitting at the rear of town. Bear in mind that Calca and Brina will not be joining you for this Dungeon, whether or not you saved them by finding parts in the Agart Mines.

Rydia’s Challenge Dungeon is a partial rehash of part of the Sealed Cavern. As such, it should look quite familiar. That said, the enemies are much stronger than before, and you should proceed with caution. Until you get over level 30 or so, run from just about everything except Blood Bats. They’ll level you up nice and quick anyway. Fire spells are a good choice for most enemies down here, or Bio when you get high enough.

- 1F. Head north and you’ll find a string of doors, most of which are Trap Doors. Since you only have two members, these battles are more dangerous than normal. Only the middle door leads anywhere.

- In the next room you’ll find three more doors. The left leads to a Chain Whip; the middle leads to another door, which further leads to a battle against a bunch of baddies for a Mythril Helm (use Stop on the Mad Ogres for an easier time); the right leads onward. If you check the semi-obvious torch along the middle path you can fight another Demon Wall, though the path behind it leads nowhere.

- There are three more doors ahead, each of which leads to a Demon Wall battle. The left is a dead end; same for the right. The last leads to a save point and stairs. (What, you thought you were at the end? Nope!)

- 2F. Hey, look, three more doors. From here the path splits several times, leading to yet more doors each time. Which one you proceed through doesn’t matter that much, though you’ll find certain doorways blocked on certain trips through the dungeon. You can find a Bronze Hourglass in the far west, an Ether further east, and chamber containing a Mythril Shield (watch out for monsters), an X-Potion, and a Light Curtain. At the end are three more Demon Wall battles; you want to kill the right-most Wall. There’s a save point beyond.

- 3F. The final area consists of lots of rope travel, each set ultimately leading to Demon Wall battles. The Demon Walls aren’t difficult; it’s the battles in-between that are killers, especially since you can’t run from any battles encountered while on ropes. (And you will run into ropes.) Bio is highly recommended in these battles. The stairs in the far left lead to a chest containing a monster battle (three Mad Ogres; use Stop or otherwise paralyze them) and Mythril Armor. The middle stairs lead to another monster battle chest (two Skuldiers and a Steel Golem) and a Polymorph Rod. The far-right door leads to the exit.

- 4F. Boss. Finally.

Boss Gobby

This is a weird fight. Boss Gobby is accompanied by three Minion Gobbies, and they’ll smack you around with some rather substandard strikes. Boss Gobby himself will only attack you if you attack him, in which case he’ll counter your attacks with some powerful magic. Kill the Minions off and Boss Gobby will buff the crap out of himself and wail on your party. Boss Gobby doesn’t have a ton of HP, so this isn’t that difficult a fight either way, but it’s much easier if you leave the Minions alone and use Bio on Boss Gobby to whittle him down. You’ll take some painful counters, true, but Bio should only take three or four castings to kill the little bugger. The Minions are a joke once their Boss is dead.

As with all Challenge Dungeons you’ll receive a random prize for making it all the way through. This will reset the Dungeon and allow you to try it again. The prizes are as follows: